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tv   Martin Bashir  MSNBC  September 7, 2012 1:00pm-2:00pm PDT

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economy. >> the republicans are fighting for moves to help the the economy. >> you might not be ready for diplomacy with beijing if you can't visit the the olympics without insulting our closest l al ala al ally. >> and the stakes. >> second prize. >> nope, there's no second prize. this thing's winner take all. >> number two, fixing our schools and improving our job training programs. that's something also that's quite new. >> god bless you and god bless america. >> we begin with just two months until election day. summer is over. the conventions are wrapped and it's time now to hit the road for the furious full sprint. all the candidates and their wives are on the trail today with six rallies in four swing states from nevada to new hampshire. and that's where this afternoon
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found joe biden and the president laying out a stark choice in this election between a winner takes all society or a basic bargain that gives everyone a fair shot. >> the promise that hard work will pay off. that responsibilities will be rewarded, that everyone getting a fair shot. everybody's going their fair share. everybody's playing by the same rules. from wall street to main street to washington, d.c. that basic bargain is why i ran for president and that's why i'm running again! >> now, the president is well aware that today's report showing 96,000 jobs added in august is disappointing, issuing a statement that we need to do better, but the president today begged to differ with the republicans perpetual answer to the problem. >> all they've got to offer is the same prescriptions that they've had for the last 30 years. tax cuts when times are good, tax cuts when times are bad.
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tax cuts to help you lose a few extra pounds. tax cuts to improve your love life. it will cure anything, according to them. >> as for mitt romney, he start the floor largely where he began, struggling to define himself to voters and relying solely on weak jobs numbers as his best chance come november. >> did you see the jobs report this morning by the way? that kind of report is obviously disheartening. another disappointing monthly figure. we're going the wrong direction. >> look, you can't blame mitt romney. he knows his own party did their best to grin and bear it at their convention. he knows he can't match the spirit that greeted the president in charlotte. he's got one playbook and it's modelled after dickens bleak house, but what about the convincing argument by bill
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clinton that no president could have done better by cleaning up the republicans mess? what would you have done? >> i could have done a heck of a lot better job than this president has, but i wasn't elected, so that's kind of moot. >> that's right. he lost the last time, didn't he? let's get right to our panel in washington. karen finney, james peterson of lehigh university. mitt romney back out there today, celebrating the tepid jobs numbers, but never giving any details of what precisely he would do when facing the worst economic crisis since the great depression. does this now constitute mr. romney for the presidency? basically no policy ideas aside from tax cuts and celebrating any bad economic news? >> well, that's all we've gotten up to this point. it's pretty clear from the republican congress that they were deeply invested in
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obstructionism to such a point they would be able to get to this cycle and say this president has accomplished nothing. it's amazing the things this mrks, the obama administration has accomplished, but clearly, mr. romney's campaign is struggling a little bit trying to figure out what their narrative is going to be. i would caution them against trying to ride negative on the jobs numbers. actually, we are still moving in the right direction, just not fast enough for the president or the people of america. but to say we're moving backwards is inaccurate. we've got to get our math right, as bill clinton said. >> karen, do you think this convention has propelled the president forward? produced momentum? stimulated voters? we know poor old mitt romney staggered out of his convention with a reverse bounce of minus one. >> yeah, i got to tell you having just gotten back, the enthusiasm and energy was
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incredible. each night, you have never seen speakers captivate an arena like that as we saw every single night with the speakers. it was really quite incredible. the the thing we're not talking about, too, is also voter registration. the convention is a great tool to be registering voters. i think what you'll see though, more important than the bounce in the polls, will be the eternal look that the campaigns do and their micro targeting, so where they're traveling tells you where they know they need to make up some percentages and the president has a good bounce coming out of the convention, but some targeted work in some targeted areas. >> joy, if president clinton dealt with the economy, john kerry a kerry addressed fp and the first lady talked about the man himself. the president actually focused on the electorate. he talked about the achievements you've made. the things you've secured.
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that was sober, but also humble, wasn't it? >> it was incredible because i think what the president was trying to do was to invest the people who voted for the president in 2008 in not only his past accomplishments, but in his future success by saying this is broader than just about me. this is not just about barack obama. this is about what you did. you did that. you're the one who secured health benefits and caused those young dreamers cob able to stay in the country and really trying to make people feel there's a sense of shared accomplishment. i think that was directed to the people in that room who the president and his campaign want to get out and knock on doors, but also to the broader electorate. that person who might be waivering saying i voted for barack obama in 2008, now, i'm not sure. well now, he's trying to say to that potentially undecided voter, but you're invested in this, too. you have a stake in the election. >> romney was pressed again
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today about why he did not mention afghanistan in his convention speech. he doesn't get any better at answering. take a listen to this. >> you talk about the things that you think are important and i described in my speech my commitment to a strong military. >> so, i guess afghanistan isn't that important. does this man know the difference between a pink jim and pakistan? >> look, listen. i always question mitt romney's political competency. considering all the different faux pas. when you add those up, it goes to whether or not he's a co competent politician. obviously, you have to either concede the mistake or politically maneuver around this question in a very, very different way, but at the end of the day, r part of what happened in the democratic convention is that yes, it's about getting registereded voters, but it's
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also about getting the the enthusiasm gap closed, so that people who are registered will come out and one of the distinctions was in the patriotism piece and romney's just really poorly dodging that question. >> karen, it's not just afghanistan. romney is facing the president's jokes about his insulting the london liolympics. >> i'm pleased that my olympic experience allows me to talk about the olympics in a straight talk manner and i think it would be appropriate if the president would talk to china in a straight talk manner. >> will the butler reveal one of romney's foreign credits? >> doesn't he know that was last campaign cycle and went right into the ditch? you can just ask john mccain. are you kidding me? it was a huge mistake not to talk about afghanistan. to not lay out a better foreign policy narrative. but i think part of the problem is he doesn't really have a plan
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other than you know, saber rattling from those guiding his foreign policy strategy and the problem that i think mitt romney doesn't understand is that the foreign policy is directly connected also to our domestic policy and the way president obama talked about in that people want to bring our troops home, but bring those resources home and invest here in the united states and that is not a message mitt romney can deliver, so therefore what, he just kind of skirted the issue and tries to talk tough on china. >> he is quite remarkable. joy, can i ask, are the next 60 days going to be utterly frenzied as the candidates travel seeking voters where ever they can find them? >> one thing you're going to want to do in a swing state like florida, turn the channel quickly when they come on. they're really inundated people and i think the dvr is going to become the most valuable tool.
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they're going to inundate people with so many ads. we are really going to know how this thing is shaking out baseded on where these guys go. if you don't see mitt romney in pennsylvania, that's sending you a signal of where they think they can and cannot win. it will be interesting to see if romney goes to ohio and how much time he spends there. if you don't see him harping on those states -- i can tell you that talking to obama campaign people, they're pretty confident about the math. >> thank you so much. next, let's break down those jobs numbers, shall we? stay with us. >> i don't know what party these men and women belong to. i don't know if they'll vote for me. but i know that their spirit defines us. they remind me in the words of scripture, that ours is a future filled with hope. on every one of our cards there's a date.
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today's new job figures confirm what we know. growth is sluggish and the unemployment rate is still above 8%, but no worries. mitt romney has a plan. it involves closing the tax codes many loopholes, deductions and credits, but not telling you which loopholes, deductions and credits until sometime after he's elected in november. fox news found that out this morning when it tried to find out from a romney policy adviser, take a look. >> can he not tell the american people those facts? >> back up for a second.
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>> why don't you explain why and which ones and how much? mr. chen, forgive me. you're just not answering my question. >> give that journalist the dupont award. joining us now in washington, ezra klein and here with me in new york, william cohen. good day to you, both. ezra, these famous deductions, credits that mitt romney talks about. you're the expert. where are they? have you seen them? can you find them? can you tell our viewers where they are? >> i can tell you where they would need to be, but mitt romney would not like it very much. i thought chen's comment, why would he tell you what he would do, the answer to that is elections are about giving voters the information. >> yeah. right. >> and if one of the two candidates would like to close out the home mortgage interest
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deduction and tax deductibility of employer based health care if people get thrown off their health care ending state and local taxes, that would be a big deal to them, but even so, the point we need to make here, this is true for a lot of what president obama mentioned last night. a multiyear we form of the tax code is not going to create jobs in the short-term. it does not alleviate the the jobs and nor by the way do obama's. i've been very surprised how little we are hearing in this election about immediate strategies to create jobs now. >> right. >> bill, you said before that one of the biggest problems here is not the presidency. it's the congress. and the budget impasse. >> one of the facts we have to remember here, since a year ago, since august of 2011, 2.4 million jobs have been created. and the the reason there aren't more in my opinion is because if wrour the the ceo of a company and you're sitting, you're one
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of these ceos sitting on this $2 trillion of cash people are sitting on, why would you invest in plant, equipment or hiring more people if you don't know what's going to happen come this fiscal cliff, the sequester at the beginning of the year. since congress won't get its act together and deal with what's about to happen, why if you're a ceo would you take the chance of investing any capital? >> you're saying that sequester that is going to come in and involve cuts in military, particularly -- >> 1.5 trillion of cuts. >> you're saying that is affecting the business community right now? >> absolutely, martin. >> but why didn't we hear that from a single republican politician? >> i don't know why we don't hear anything from mitt romney and his cohort of republican politicians. they won't tell us about his ira, trust funds. they won't tell us about his tax plans, anything. so i'm not surprised, but it's clear to me that if i'm a ceo of
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a company, why am i going to invest without knowing what's going to happen. >> ezra, do you want to butt in? >> sure. i think bill is certainly right that we're going to see a lot of uncertainty coming out of the fiscal cliff. i don't think that sluggishness in the economy, i don't think the the reason we're not seeing more investment this year and people have tried to run the numbers on this, is because they're worried about what's going to happen in january. people are saying look, they're going to figure that out. we're seeing this every six months in congress. it's not helping anything. god knows no one thinks congress is doing a worse job than i do there. it is a national embarrass m, but we have europe happening. we're having a drought across the middle of the country, which people think is knocking off a half a gdp point. we're going to have fiscal drag next year. one thing we have a problem with in politics, we talk and politics and try to make the
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economy all about what we're doing in washington, in politics and a lot of us, i don't want to say beyond control, but just fundamentally unrelated. >> bill, let me play you something bill clinton said on wednesday night. listen to this. >> since 1961, for 52 years now, the republicans have held the white house 28 years. the democrats, 24. what's the job score? republicans, 24 million. democrats 42. >> bill, before you tell me what you think of that statement, it has been fact checked and fact checked and proven to be true. what's your analysis? >> the facts are the facts, right? the democrats are better at creating jobs. i mean, bill clinton was the last president to have a balanced budget and we know that after he balanced that budget, that the economy took off and
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millions of jobs were created. these are the same republicans, martin, who had that national debt sign up in the back, the debt clock. forgetting they were responsible for many of the trillions ticking away there and trying to blame it on the democrats. which i don't understand cht thest like we didn't start two wars and didn't you know, send the economy into a fiscal recession. >> thank you, gentlemen. stay with us. >> such as that. i've known ben a long time. he and i have disagreements on these issues, but they're respectful of one another. bob...
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oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners.
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show a tight race. such a tight race that their opponent, mitt romney, will speak in iowa himself in just a few hours and another person without any time to rest is our kristen welker, who is traveling with the president. kristen, this is the president's eighth trip to iowa this year. he was there less than a week ago. does he really badly need those six electoral votes when so many bigger states are in play? >> reporter: it's pretty stunning, isn't it, martin? i feel like i'm spending a lot of f time in iowa. this is an important state to both candidates. first of all, this is a razor tight race, so they would argue that every single vote matters, but i will hold special significance to president obama. in large part thanks to white working class voters who voted for him. now, we interviewed really the sort of political queen here in
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iowa. who was with the des moines register. here's how she put it. she say quote, iowa is important symbolically. if other states see they are turning away from barack obama, that is a harbinger for the rest of the country, so that really sums up in large part, why is state is so important to president obama. he has put a lot of money into this state. this obama campaign has more than 60 campaign offices here. as far as we can tell, the romney campaign has about six. they are working more on their ground game with the internet, martin. but this is certainly a state that both candidates are hoping to hold on to, but it holds special significance for the president. >> indeed, mr. romney is now off to new hampshire, where there are also four electoral available, so this is a real battle for every single one, sint. >> reporter: tas real battle for every vote and what we're really waiting to see right now is will
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the president get a bounce coming off this week's convention. he gave his speech last night and then, the white house woke up to what to some extent, a disappointing jobs report. the unemployment rate ticked down, but also showed that people are exiting the worse force. the white house would push back and say some are dropping out because of retirement, leaving to have children. any way you slice it, this is not the news the white house was hoping to wake up to. they're trying to hold on to any positive momentum the president may have gotten last night. >> thank you. the president speaking in iowa today. stay with us. the week's top lines are coming up. >> did it sway the next guest we had? >> thank you, brian. joining us now is actor and so much more, chuck norris. how's our studio looking? >> it's great. ♪ [ acoustic guitar: upbeat ]
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spends like cash. feels like membership. from touching our hearts to our funny bones. here are today's top lines. the week in review. >> to the republic for which it stands. >> i'm no longer just candidate, i'm the president. >> there's a little gathering going on in charlotte. >> i wish the president had succeeded because i want america to succeed. >> [ bleep ]. >> if you buy into the cynicism -- >> the it's never been a good bet to bet against the american people. >> take some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did. >> would you concede some were not accurate? >> mitt romney's our candidate and there's no changing that now. >> he loves our cars so much, they even have their own
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elevator. >> for barack, success is about the difference you make in people's lives. change is hard. eventually, we get there. >> he also tried to work with congressional republicans. that didn't work out so well. >> our top political priority should be to deny president obama a second term. >> waivers, work requirements and welfare. >> it's just not true. >> what did bill clinton call it? >> arithmetic. >> i think he saw it the bain way. >> slow the rise of the oceans. >> climate change is not a hoax. >> i'm interested in politics. >> we had the lead, we let people down. >> historical existence of george w. bush. >> i think i got a b. >> either you nor governor romney mentioned afghanistan. >> president didn't have time apparently to go to the american legion. >> sarah palin said she could see russia. >> how does he know my name? >> mitt romney talks like he's only seen russia by watching rocky iv. >> president obama began his
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presidency with an apology tour. >> new to foreign policy. >> it's time for democrats to grow a backbone! >> you deserve a president who will never quit on you! >> i need you to vote this november. >> let's get right to our panel. i'm joined by my colleague, toure, co-host of "the sicycle" and goldy taylor. before we talk about the post convention phase, let me ask you about something. a local affiliate in iowa sat down with mrs. ann romney by satellite today. she faced some specific questions regarding women's issues. she was asked do you believe a lesbian mother should be allowed to marry her partner? you know, i'm not going the talk about the specific issues. question, do you believe that employer provided health insurance should be required to birth control? ann romney.
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again, you're asking me questions that are not what this election is going to be about. it seems she prefers if her husband answers the specific questions, but we never get any specific answers from her husband. >> i think really the truth is if you are the wife of a candidate, whether that candidate is running for congress, for mayor, dogcatcher or president of these united states, you are his or her number one advocate. you are his or her's number one surrogate and so, certainly, ann romney has to be as prepared as any other surrogate on the campaign. not really to speak to the minutia of the issues, but in broad and sweeping terms, her husband's issue on same-sex marriage. >> the right to choose or the todd akin and paul ryan's joint attempts to introduce this notion of forcible rape. again, this has come from them and yet, she cannot answer a question.
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>> i think that this comes down to how well she's prepped to be out on the campaign trail and if you judge by today's interview, she clearly isn't. we've got 60 days left to go in this campaign and these kinds of missteps really, you know, he can't afford them. >> toure, she stood up and said i love you women. is that not good enough? >> as long as you're straight women, but too women who love each other, that's weird. i don't want to talk about that. >> what about that response and to goldie's point? because nobody wants to articulate her husband's. >> romney is presenting himself as a totally vanilla candidate with no edges. i don't have any specific things. he want to be sort of that generic brand that you get. we're not going to make any big ads about or make any fun, but just it's generic brand. so either you choose barack obama, which comes with
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fireworks or generic brand x. >> okay, now, the enthusiasm gap is one of the central ten dants of political wisdom as you know and if you look at some of the polls t race is tighter among some than it is among registered voters and latinos and younger voters indicate they're less interested in the election than seniors. do you think the convention that's just within carried out in charlotte, do you think that's going the fix this problem? >> i think it's always true that older voters are more interested, more likely to vote. older white voter, you should say, more likely to vote than nonwhite and younger voters. so that is always true, but it's especially true this year with the onslaught of negative campaigns and ads that have come from these suh p per pacs. that tends to depress people's interest in electoral politic. what these conventions have done, the rnc and it's sort of
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negative, it's very frustrated type of atmosphere, did not engender a lot of excitement. i've been told by folks who went to both that the energy was markedly more positive and so you saw a real surge, i think, in excitement among those grass roots. they're going to take that back to their neighborhoods. >> and the core message difference. >> what about the enthusiasm issue? >> the core message at the dnc was we're in this together. barack obama used that marine term of we leave nobody behind. the rnc message is we built it by ourself and if you're struggling, you need to learn character, you're going to do it by yourself because we did or do you want to hear we're going to help you. this idea of the gap is kind of funny.
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enthusiasm canyon. they don't even like mitt romney. anybody in the country than this guy, but it looks like we're stuck with him. we're in the reverse of the '04 campaign when democrats hated bush, but republicans loved him. did democrats love kerry? no, we did not love john kerry. we cannot say that with a straight face and now, they have a candidate they don't love. they really don't even like him. they're stuck with him. he's not a true conservative. he's just renting the party. we have a candidate who we love and especially the democratic brand after we saw michelle obama give that amazie ingamazi stirring speech. it was like going to church and then what barack obama did and what bill clinton did versus the todd akin wing of the party? >> absolutely. toure and goldie taylor, i'm sorry to cut short your enthusiasm, but we've run out of time. thank you, both. next, team romney ripped to shreds over their foreign policy. stay with us. >> folks, sarah palin said she
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could see russia from alaska. mitt romney talks like he's only seen russia by watching rocky iv. >> i think he diminished himself by even mentioning my name. how does he even know my name? but that doesn't mean we should be penalized for it. that's why liberty mutual insurance policies come standard with accident forgiveness, if you qualify. learn more at libertymutual.com. now we need a little bit more... a little bit more vanilla? this is great! [ male announcer ] at humana, we believe there's never been a better time to share your passions... because the results... are you having fun doing this? yeah. that's a very nice cake! [ male announcer ] well, you can't beat them. [ giggles ] ohh! you got something huh? whoa... [ male announcer ] humana understands
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you don't call russia our number one enemy, not al-qaeda, russia. unless you're still stuck in a cold war mind war. >> ask osama bin laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago. >> jon chairman of votevets.org and mark ginsburg, former adviser to the white house in one of the most complex regions of the world, the middle east. jon, what was your reaction to romney not mentioning the troops? >> it hurts personally because you think of this guy, he has a legitimate chance to perhaps be the president, that he would care or understand the sacrifice of the american troops overseas, particularly in afghanistan, but it doesn't surprise me. what you have is a president's policy on afghanistan where he talks about it and talked about it last night, the plan to get out of afghanistan, but it still is unpopular.
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we have a year, year and a half of troops in combat, maybe to the end of 2014. his plan in afghanistan ten times worse, where he wants to continue large numbers of troops in afghanistan past 2014 with no clear vision to end the war and that's a much less popular position than where the president is, so where the republicans don't want the stand up and talk about how their position is supported by maybe 20% of the population and how the cuts are about 13% of the budget. >> indeed. after virtually every speaker incinerated romney on foreign policy last night, it does feel a little unkind to sweep through the ashes of his credibility, but have you ever encountered anyone seeking t ining highest but so ill resourced? does the man know the difference between pakistan and a pink gem? >> the fact of the matter is
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there is not only an absence of depth and breadth in the foreign policy experience of governor romney, but also in his running mate, but more importantly, at the time when he even dares to step out on the international stage, he managed to stick his foot in his mouth and that really is the most troublesome aspect of this. it's bad enough not to have the foreign policy experience, but when you pretend and then screw up, that's even worse. >> jon, it was inspiring to see all those vets on stage at the convention and as you watched mitt romney duck questions about the war, what do you hear from your fellow vets about this election? >> well, our issues are at the forefront because we're solely responsible of the federal. nobody can make or send us to war other than the commander in chief. the federal government controls us. we have a suicide epidemic. we've got a lot of troops in afghanistan being killed by
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afghan troops and there's benefit issued, so i think people wabt to know what you're going to do for the veterans when they return home. it's really important to stress that the paul ryan budget slashes medicare. these are programs that a lot of older veterans rely on and it also slashes the veteran's budget that takes care of our troops. i think there's a tremendous amount of concern and a lot of questions inside the military today. what is mitt romney going to do in afghanistan other than just doing what we've been doing. >> ambassador, you referred earlier to mitt romney's recent tour where he went to london and insulted the united kingdom's organization of the olympics. what does that do, what does that tell you about his presidential prospects? what does that do to the affect of the country overseas? >> well, i guarantee you, the british may reject his nominee for ambassador to london.
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i was in london during the olympics and the the brits were furious given their commitment and stake in the olympics, but more importantly, to be more serious, the problem with the republican party right now is that it has lost its sense of direction on national security. it has almost a three tiered axis that doesn't quite know on which side it's going to fall. it has neo cons, people in the party who are isolationists, such as ron paul. it has people who really don't know what they're going to do in dealing with a formal national security and they slow slogans around. sloganeering doesn't cut it when it comes to national security and governor romney is is going to have to take a crash course in dealing not only with our adversaries, but understanding how to be nice to our allies. that's really what is most difficult and challenges. >> difficult and disturbing. thank you both. next, how paul ryan may drag the ticket down in a group it
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has paul ryan jumped the shark? one thing's for sure though, running if for vice president has kept this ambitious young man on his toes. >> one thing that they keep bringing up is the fact that you're not accurate with some of your statements. >> so, here's my point. would you concede that while many of the things you said were affected, some were not accurate? >> that's my point. here's the point. the point is, and we will not duck the tough issues. >> absolutely. we're joined now by julian epstein and maria teresa cue mar. is paul ryan really at risk of jumping the shark? >> i think it's a good metaphor.
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the romney ryan ticket is loosing this race particularly in the battleground states. they have a daunting map. they did not get a bounce from the convention. >> negative one from the convention. >> and if you look at the gallup poll today, obama has had a 12-point positive swing on job approv approval. democrats did not have to have an empty chair on the stage because we're running against two empty suits. he voted against simpson bowles, he's the guy that caused it. he criticized the president and the vote, the position on se que. >> i keep saying to you, the man is not interested in facts. >> well, i'm coming to a point. >> please. >> he criticized stimulus. asked for stimulus money. this is a guy who can't even tell the truth about the time he
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ran in a marathon, when he claimed he ran under a three hour marathon when fs actually over four hours. he has become a net negative because it has force d the discussion on so many of the vulnerable points on the republicans, the discussion about medicare as wen it. the fact they don't have a plan when it comes to the debt, the outlines of a plan. they do nothing for the gaps republicans face. >> do you agree? >> sort of. by picking ryan and fortunately mitt romney basically solidified the extreme right, so now, usually after conventions as we know, it allows you to go to the moderate middle. that is not list -- a lot of the points that julian mentioned. but i also think that what he
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did was made a clear demarcation between the latino community of who they should be voting for. the fact the republican party basically adopted the platform of the author of these show me your paper laws and what we saw yesterday where vice president biden basically said that the what the dream act did is basically the emancipation proclamation of what lincoln did for the united states. that's incredible. every single thing we saw last night signalled to the latino community there was the strict demarcation and i think julian, you're absolutely right. by talking about by having, creating elizabeth warren and all these other females talking about, ledbetter as well, demonstrate that again, the democrats are there for women who are swing voters and latinos. >> it's exactly right. and maria comes to three central points. republicans can't win this
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electi election unless they win ohio. unless they do better than they close the 12-point gender gap and unless they get less than 30% of the hispanic vote. ryan does nothing for them on any of those problems and becomes a net negative because he was the guy that was supposed to fill the void on policy. he was supposed to provide an economic plan. you ask people and i asked a lot of people, mind you, it wasn't charlotte, you ask people to identify one thing that the republicans will do if romney is elected and they are unable to say anything other than cutting tacks. as i pointed out before, taxes are at 15% of gdp. the low eest in 60 years, so that's hardly a plan. they are unable to identify a single thing they're going to do that's different than george bush. >> i'm afraid we're out of time, but thank you for joining us.
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it's time to clear the air and speaking just a few hours ago, mitt romney said this about the forthcoming debates. >> a nice chance this debates to talk about truth and fiction. >> but why wait until the debates to separate fact from fiction? take paul ryan, for example, mr. romney's running mate. on stimulus, a stimulus that provided tax cuts and enabled states to continue employing teachers and police officers, this is what paul ryan said. >> the stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst. >> not only is that untrue, it's
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entirely hypocritical because now, we know that mr. ryan l lobbied for stimulus money and got $20 million for the wisconsin energy corporation. $740,000 for the milwaukee area technical college and he secured $240,000 for the energy center of wisconsin. and then of course, there's mr. ryan's other target of venom and deceit, the affordable care act and here's what he said about that. >> obama care comes to more than 2,000 pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees and fines that have no place in a free country. >> but once again, we learn that mr. ryan actually wrote to the department of health seeking moneys that are only available because of the affordable care act. his letter in which mr. ryan supports a grant president clinton. he says if the grant is given, it will serve the health care needs of thousands of new patients of all ages who are currently without health care.